“You think I walk around with a stack of Polaroids? I don’t have any proof. You’ll just have to determine for yourself if I’m a crackpot.”

“That’s fair. Why are you doing this? Why now?”

Six turned up a long, hilly road that undulated through hundreds of tombstones and crypts. He drove incredibly slow. He said, “I have been out of the country for five years. I found a way in, so I came back to end this.”

She hesitated. “By killing people?”

“Of course not. I didn’t come here to kill anybody.”

“What about in Chevy Chase?”

“That wasn’t me.”

“You just said—”

“I was there. I was shot. But I didn’t kill Babbitt.”

“What about Dupont Circle?”

“Not me. Again, I was present, but I didn’t kill Max Ohlhauser or the transit cops.”

“What about Washington Highlands?”

It was a long time before the reply came. “Those guys I did kill.”

“And the Easy Market shoot-out?”

The man in the hoodie and the sunglasses exhaled. “I assume you saw the footage, so I assume you know I had to do it.”

“I didn’t see any footage. Just bodies.”

Six shrugged. “Yeah, I killed those guys. Believe me, they had it coming.”

“So . . . you say you aren’t here to kill anyone. Yet by my count eleven people are dead in four incidents, and though you admit to being present at all four incidents you are copping to just five of the killings. In my business that calls you something of an unreliable witness.”

He shrugged. “I only killed the bad ones. That’s kind of my thing.”

“Who killed the rest, if not you?”

“People following the orders of Denny Carmichael.”

She let that statement hang in the air while they drove for a moment, then asked, “Why does the CIA want you dead?”

“The CIA doesn’t want me dead. Carmichael wants me dead. I don’t know the real reason. I thought I did, but now that I’m here, I’m more confused than ever.”

“What is his stated reason?”

“Some operation that happened six years ago. Something that went off without a hitch.”

“But if it went off without a hitch, why does Carmichael want you—”

Six interrupted suddenly, as if something had just come to him. “Do you have contacts in Israeli intelligence?”

Catherine nodded. “Yes. Of course. Well-placed ones, as a matter of fact.”

With excitement in his voice, he said, “Six years ago, a Mossad penetration agent in al Qaeda in Iraq traveled to Trieste, Italy. He was compromised and burned to the opposition but didn’t know it. An al Qaeda assassin showed up to kill him. Before he could act, an operative arrived and rescued the Mossad agent.”

King just said, “I’ve never heard of this incident.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“How do you know all this?”